"You're in the dark, in the car, watching
the black tarred street being swallowed by speed.
He tells you his Dean is making him
hire a person of color when there are so
many great writers out there.
You think, maybe this is an experiment,
and you are being tested or retroactively insulted,
or you have done something that communicates
this is an OK conversation to be having.
Why do you feel comfortable saying this to me?
You wish the light would turn red
or a police siren would go off so you could
slam on the brakes, slam into the car ahead of you,
flying forward, settle quickly, both your faces
would suddenly be exposed to the wind.
As usual, you drive straight for the moment
with the expected backing off of what was previously said.
It is not only about confrontation,
it is headache producing.
It is also that you have a destination that
doesn't include acting like this moment isn't inhabitable,
hasn't happened before, and the before isn't
part of the now as the night darkens at the time
shortens between where we are and where we are going."
The funny thing about this--
I mean, it's true what this person said to me.
Someone told me that story, yeah, there it is, citizen--
but then just by chance, somebody else
told me that they interviewed for this position,
the position referred to in this story.
And I was in one of those rare moments in my life
where you were getting the story from all sides.
And the person, the other person of color, told me, said,
I was offered this job.
But everybody was so hostile, I decided not to take it.
And then a third person said to me,
oh, they hired so-and-so in this position.
And this person said, it was funny.
It was the wife of the guy who chaired the committee.
So that's the person that was so much more talented
than the people of color.
It turned out to be the wife of the person who
had bemoaned the fact that the Dean had asked
her to hire a person of color.
So the whole thing took a year for me to get all the pieces.
And then I had them all.
And then life went on.